Summer at the Lake (9 page)

It didn’t even bother him when, six months after moving to Stanhurst, his father wrote to say he could no longer afford to pay Seb’s school fees. At the start of the next term he transferred to the comprehensive which Floriana attended, and where her sister had also been a student – a model student as was pointed out to her all too often. It was then that Floriana more or less dropped her immediate circle of friends and she and Seb became inseparable and were dubbed the Gang of Two.

Floriana’s mother adored Seb and made him an honorary member of the family, saying he was welcome any time he wanted. Unbeknown to Floriana, she was regularly sneaking food parcels into his bag to take home with him. Floriana only found out when she caught her mother red-handed fiddling with Seb’s bag when he was spending Sunday afternoon with her to do some last-minute revision for their GCSEs. Telling Floriana to
ssh!
her mother confessed that she had been doing it for months. ‘He has his pride, Floriana,’ her mother said, ‘so don’t say anything to him.’

Mum wasn’t the only one to fall for Seb, a high percentage of girls at school did as well, but he somehow kept them at arm’s distance without actually upsetting or insulting anyone. In private to Floriana he said he had enough on his plate as it was without taking on the demands of a needy girlfriend. ‘Not all of womankind is as needy as your mother,’ Floriana had rebuked him.

His attitude towards girls changed when they went to university.

They hadn’t planned to go to the same university, let alone go to Oxford. Forever one for the path of ease and least resistance, Floriana hadn’t considered it, but her History teacher urged her to give it a go. ‘I know you hate hard work,’ he’d said, ‘and coast along by relying on that near-photographic memory of yours, but Oxford would give you the stimulus you need. What’s to lose?’

Precious time preparing herself for the stress of it all, had been Floriana’s private opinion. But once Seb had said he was applying – just for the sheer hell of it – a competitive streak she didn’t know she possessed kicked in and the next thing she and Seb, along with four other sixth-formers, were heading to Oxford for an overnight stay and a round of interviews.

During the train journey back home afterwards, and nursing spectacular hangovers following a night of what Seb called ‘acquainting ourselves with college life’, Floriana had known that if she wasn’t offered a place, she would be devastated. She had fallen in love with Oxford. She loved everything about it; its velvet green lawns and ivy-clad walls, its architecture, its ethos, its tradition, and its sense of place in time and history. Never had she wanted something so much. Sitting next to Seb on the train, she had pulled off her gloves and asked him to read her palm. ‘Tell me what it says,’ she’d said. ‘Am I going to Oxford?’

He’d held her hand in his and in an act of solemn divination stared at it thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, Florrie, you’re going, no question.’

She’d giggled. ‘And you?’

He’d raised his own and studied it for a long moment. ‘It says wherever my best friend goes, I go too. What’s more, it says we’re going to go travelling together one day.’

They’d slept the rest of the train journey home, Floriana’s head against his shoulder, his arm around her. Anyone looking at them would have assumed they were boyfriend and girlfriend. People, including her sister, could never get it into their heads that they really were just good friends. How could there be anything else, Seb would say, when Floriana and her parents had effectively become a surrogate family to him? To be anything other than friends would just be plain weird. He truly was like a brother to her. So no, there was never anything remotely sexual between them.

Just as there was no truth in Seb’s ability to read palms. Other than knowing a few rudimentary things about palmistry, it was, of his own admission, another of his charlatan tricks to fool people into thinking he was something he wasn’t. For all that, it had become a light-hearted joke they often resorted to when in need of reassurance about something. Or to reaffirm the dreams they had for themselves.

In this instance, the palm reading got it right and the following October Floriana took up her place at St Anne’s College to read History and in his typically laid-back fashion, Seb said he was embarking on three years of dossing about at Keble to idle his way through the odd work of literature.

Away from home, and as though now free of the responsibility of caring for his mother, Seb threw himself into college life – mostly the social aspects. He was making up for lost time, he said, and while he began working his way through a series of girlfriends Floriana started seeing a rugby-playing chemist called John from Merton. He lasted almost to the end of that first Michaelmas term but parted with Floriana when he realised she was discussing their relationship in intimate detail with Seb.

‘But why wouldn’t we?’ Floriana retaliated. ‘We tell each other everything.’

‘But some things are private,’ John had argued back.

Her next boyfriend had been a fellow History student, but he stopped seeing her after her escapade with Seb which had resulted in them spending a night in a police cell. He didn’t want to be tainted by association, she supposed.

Though she and Seb were the closest of friends, there was nothing possessive or exclusive about their friendship, both of them were quite happy with the other to have a life of their own. More than once Floriana found herself thinking that she could not contemplate a long-term relationship unless it could be carried out along the same lines.

Meanwhile, Seb was getting through girlfriends at an alarming rate; he had a different one every time Floriana saw him. It seemed to her that it was nothing but sex for him, the more casual and meaningless the better. As the weeks, months and terms passed, she saw a recklessness to his behaviour that worried her.

Sunday evening, and although he had been expecting it, the ringing of his mobile still took Adam unawares.

He cautioned himself not to rush to answer it. He mustn’t appear too eager. Better to play it cool. Cool but not cold. Definitely not cold. Cool but not desperate.

Was he desperate?

Yeah, he was desperate all right. All last night he’d sat here thinking how much he missed Jesse and how he hated the sight of the empty spaces she’d left in the house while he’d been out yesterday – the empty cupboards, the bare shelves. Then today, all morning and all afternoon, he’d been on tenterhooks waiting for this call, deliberately staying no more than a few yards from his mobile in case he missed it ringing. But just as a watched pot never boiled, nor did a watched phone ring, so it was inevitable that the minute he’d turned his back and got on with some work, the call would come through.

It might not be Jesse, of course.

Or if it was, she might not be going to say what he hoped she would; that she’d had second thoughts, that packing up her things had made her think again.

For pity’s sake, just answer it!

He reached across the breakfast bar for the phone that was behind his laptop; a picture of Jesse stared back at him from the small illuminated screen.

‘Hi, Jesse,’ he said, hoping he would come across as happy to hear from her, but not so happy that she thought he wasn’t missing her.

‘Adam,’ she said.

Not exactly breezily upbeat, he decided, but then not too downbeat either. So far so good. A sum total of three words exchanged between them and all still to play for.

He waited for her to speak again – after all she was the one who wanted to talk to him. When he’d returned from Latimer Street yesterday, he’d found a note on the worktop from her. It had been friendly enough, just a few lines saying she hoped he didn’t mind but she’d made herself a drink and she would ring the following day as there was something she wanted to discuss with him. Eaten up with curiosity – and hope – he’d been tempted to ring her straight away, but he hadn’t.

When she didn’t say anything further, he said, ‘Did you manage OK yesterday? Find everything you needed?’

‘Yes, thanks.’

There was another pause. He was about to fill it with some inanity when she said, ‘This isn’t easy, is it? It’s not how I thought it would be.’

Bloody hell, he thought, you should try it from where I’m standing! But sensing a chink in her defences, perhaps even a hint of the regret he’d hoped for, he said, ‘Would it be easier to have this conversation face to face?’

‘No,’ she said quickly. Too quickly. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ she added.

‘You’re sure?’ he said. ‘There’d be no pressure. Just the two of us talking. You saying whatever it is you want to say, me listening. Maybe some coffee involved. Or maybe dinner?’ He gripped the mobile and cringed. Too pushy! Way too pushy. He waited for the knock-back.

‘That’s . . . that’s really sweet of you that you could suggest something like that, because that’s how I’d like things to be between us. You know, being friends and being able to speak to each other without any bad feelings.’

His hope took a nosedive. ‘Friends,’ he repeated. ‘Is that why you wanted to speak to me? To establish we could be
friends
?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘If you think it’s possible.’

Hurt and anger welled up in him. And disappointment. ‘You mean, if I can be with you and not wish it was how it used to be between us? But hang on, that was when I was like a brother to you. I’m getting confused, is it a friend or a brother you want?’

‘Adam, please don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.’

The phone clamped to his ear, he whirled round on the spot and willed himself to stay calm. Sarcasm was not going to help his cause. He closed his eyes and from nowhere came the image of being in Esme Silcox’s house, the sun pouring in through the window of the large elegant drawing room and Euridice purring on his lap. The old lady’s words echoed in his head:
Is there no way you can win her back?

He cleared his throat. ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t get upset,’ he said, ‘but I miss you, Jesse, and I wish you were here now. I keep thinking of all the good times we had. And the good times we could have in the future.’

‘I miss you too,’ she said. ‘I miss how you could always be so reassuring and make me feel better about—’

‘Then come home,’ he cut in, unable to stop himself. ‘Let’s forget this awful week ever happened. Just tell me how to make things better between us and I’ll do it. I . . . I love you.’

There was a long silence. It was so long he wondered if the signal had died.

‘Are you still there, Jesse?’

‘Yes, I’m still here.’ He heard her take a deep breath and fearing the worst – adamant rejection – he leapt in with both feet again.

‘Look,’ he said, deciding to act on the advice Miss Silcox had given him, ‘why don’t we put off making any definitive decisions right now, when maybe neither of us is thinking straight? Why don’t we put things on hold and take time out to think things over?’

‘Are you saying you want us to be on a break?’

He tried to lighten the tone. ‘I know it sounds like something from an American sitcom, but yes, I am. If it would help. If it would give us both space to think things over, to know what it is we really want.’

He was met with another silence. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘Would it help?’

It wasn’t until Tuesday that Floriana went back to work.

The office for Dreaming Spires Tours was on the High, just down from St Mary’s. The bulls-eye bay-fronted windows looked festively charming and to Floriana’s mind – because she had done them herself last week – were tastefully decorated with just the right amount of ye olde worlde Christmas schmaltz.

Since it was only just after nine o’clock and they didn’t open until nine-thirty, it was too early for any customers yet, but Tony, her boss, was there before her. When she walked in, he looked up from where he was tidying the booking counter. He made no attempt to disguise his alarm at the sight of her. ‘Floriana, darling, you look awful!’

‘Thanks, that’s just what I need to hear.’

Taking off his glasses and letting them dangle from the chain around his neck, he came out from behind the counter. ‘I had no idea you were in such a bad way. I thought it was more shock that you were nursing rather than actual physical damage. You poor thing. Why didn’t you tell me it was this bad?’

Disappointed that her attempts at concealment – a beanie hat pulled low, strategically applied make-up and her hair worn down so it formed a partial curtain over one side of her face – had been far from successful, she said brightly, ‘I’m fine. Really. It’s just bruising.’

He tutted and shook his head. ‘But your cheek, it looks like someone took a cheese grater to it.’

She winced at the description. Yesterday she’d had enough of the dressing on her cheek and had carefully removed it, deciding that it would heal faster uncovered, just as her mother used to say whenever she’d grazed her knees as a child – let the air get at it.

‘I need to work, Tony,’ she said. ‘I can’t sit moping around at home any longer; I’ve done enough of that already.’

‘Are you sure? I could give Damian a call and see if he’s free to step in. You’re down for the Potter tour, aren’t you? He could manage that without too much trouble. And then you could help me here in the office today, that would be much easier for you.’

Everyone at Dreaming Spires Tours knew that Tony had the screaming hots for Damian Webb and chose to overlook the fact that he wasn’t a qualified guide. Damian was an actor whose claim to fame was as an extra in an episode of
Inspector Morse
– ‘Death is Now My Neighbour’ – in which he’d played a don walking through the front quad of Brasenose College. That was way back in 1997 but boy, he never let anyone forget it. He’d also appeared fleetingly in a couple of
Midsomer Murders
episodes. When he was between acting jobs, which happened a lot, he offered his services to Tony, and while his knowledge as a tour guide was woefully inadequate and thankfully precluded him from leading the more in-depth tours, the tourists who didn’t know the first thing about Oxford, and could therefore be easily fooled, lapped him up, especially if he regaled them with his luvvie tales of being on set with John Thaw and Kevin Whately.